Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light
Jacques Lusseyran 1924-1971); Viktor Frankl
(1905-1997); C. G. Jung (1875-1961); Friedrich Nietzsche (1875-1900);
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Jacques Lusseyran was one of the Resistance Fighters in
France working to undermine the Nazis who had occupied France during World
War II. He was blinded as child in an accident, but he continued to navigate
the world on his own. Like many of the other founders and leaders of the
French Resistance, he began his resistance activities as a teenager.
- Lusseyran was blinded in a school accident.
- His parents encouraged him to find his own way
without physical sight, and they expressed confidence in him a person.
- It turned out that he could navigate the physical,
material world without the usual physical sight.
- He gained an acute sense of insight into the
personalities and moral character of those around him.
- He was able to see the personalities and life force
of the people, objects, and natural surroundings in terms of some kind
of 'light.'
- How many different kinds of 'light' was he able to
perceive? Are they literal, metaphorical, perceptual, or something
else?
- At a critical juncture, he makes an error in judgment
that leads to his downfall as well as his comrades in the French
Resistance. What was this error, and how should we regard it?
- This downfall leads to their imprisonment in the
concentration camps. What is the relation between Lusseyran's health,
physical well being, and the 'light' he perceives?
- What does it mean to resist darkness/evil within,
without?
- What does it mean to know something or someone:
body-mind-heart-spirit?
- What is the relation between life, death, and the
'light'?
Themes of the Dark Side
- War and imprisonment in the concentration camps
- Blindness and Insight
- Darkness as ignorance, evil, and death
- Issues of women and gender, by way of omission
- Social consciousness and individual awakening
Comparisons
Kierkegaard: faith and doubt; sin and redemption; good and
evil
Krishna, Arjuna, and the Bhagavad Gita: karma and liberation
(moksa); delusion and knowledge (jnana; gnosis)
Jung: conscious and unconscious; the shadow, complexes, and archetypes;
the healing power of the Self (vs ego-consciousness)
Frankl: meaning and meaninglessness
Lusseyran: light and dark